


Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore

by Magnus_Martyr



Category: Bron | Broen | The Bridge
Genre: Angst and Fluff, Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Everyone Has Issues, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, No Happy People in Scandinavia, Suicide Attempt, Vignette, gapfiller
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-09
Updated: 2018-02-09
Packaged: 2019-03-15 23:30:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13623771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magnus_Martyr/pseuds/Magnus_Martyr
Summary: A couple of missing scenes set directly after the incident at the train tracks in 3.10.





	Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore

_There must be something seriously wrong with Saga_ , Henrik thought wryly, not for the first time that night.

Nearly stepping in front of a train was arguably the biggest clue. In the aftermath, sobbing on dirty tarmac, gravel under her knees, she relaxed in his embrace: shoulders sagging, she swayed and leaned into him, just barely, but close enough that he kept inhaling the odd strand of her hair. 

“Come on, I’ll drive you home,“ he said when she stiffened and slipped out of his arms. “We can come back for your car tomorrow.”

Not a very profound response to a suicide attempt — Claes Sandberg would have quoted a smarmy soundbite about choosing life — but a hell lot better than angry, near-incoherent ranting. Henrik had seen victims of death by train before, courtesy of DSB, and he didn’t feel like watching the forensics guys walk along the tracks to assemble a flesh-and-blood 3D-puzzle of Saga Norén.

“No, we can’t”, she replied. “It’s in a no parking zone.” It sounded so much like the old Saga that his lips twitched with relief.

There it was, parked directly under the traffic sign, in a puddle of oil-slick rainbows, a blatant offence against Swedish road safety rules. She’d know the article and clause, but it was probably too soon for another bad Wikipedia joke. 

While fumbling to unlock the door, she dropped the keys twice. Henrik wordlessly reached out for them. As she dangled them over his open palm, her fingers were still shaking. “Only till over there,” Saga said and stepped aside.

She glared at him for daring to defile the driver’s seat; with her swollen, red-rimmed eyes, she didn’t exactly put the fear of God or Länskrim Malmö into him. Another sign she’d gone off the rails, no pun intended: she tolerated him behind the wheel of her beloved Porsche — for about 300 metres, but still.

*****

On the way to her flat, Saga kept staring out of the passenger window, watching the dirty orange streetlights pass by rather than looking at him. It took Henrik ten minutes to figure out she was crying again. The tremor in her shoulders and the occasional sniffle gave her away before her tears turned into another fit of full-blown sobbing: loud, ugly, unrestrained, like a child, though that wasn’t a train of thought he cared to follow.

So he kept his eyes on the road, half-afraid that his girls would suddenly wave at him from the rear-view mirror, making stupid faces or chewing the ends of their pigtails. Even worse, Alice might be sitting next to him once he turned his head, as if he’d just picked her up at that fucking building site.

Henrik preferred them to stay at home, waiting for him, patiently, serenely, their faces plastered with frozen smiles immortalized in holiday snapshots and family portraits. Sometimes, it was hard to remember what they actually looked like, down to a crooked milk tooth, the precise location of a mole, or the wrinkles of a tired frown.

They couldn’t come with him — with them. Saga’s flat was small enough, and two was a crowd for her. She had her own ghosts, too, although she didn’t believe in hauntings.

*****

“Will you be okay?” he asked when Saga stood in the middle of the room, unmoving, a stranger in her own home. She hadn’t even taken off her coat yet. “Or should we go to the hospital?”

“A _mental_ hospital,” she said flatly. It wasn’t a question. “I’m fine. And I can’t help you with your case if you have me committed.”

“I know.” Henrik shrugged. “But I’m afraid you’ll — you’ll go back there once I leave.”

“Then don’t,” she said, and that was that.

He would have offered to stay: without Saga, he’d have choked in a pool of his own vomit, right on the dining-room floor, where Alice or the girls could walk in at any moment and stumble upon his body. But if she _asked_ him to — more proof she was very much the opposite of fine.

She was rooted to the carpet: the mud dripping off her boots had already left grubby stains. Her eyes were flicking nervously between his face and the blank wall, as if she were carrying on a silent conversation with someone behind him.

“Take off your shoes,” he said. If there was one thing that Saga understood, it was bluntness. Get some Kleenex — blow your nose — wash your face — sit down — have a glass of water.

“Maybe something stronger than tap water?” he asked as she greedily gulped it down, gripping the glass with both hands.

Saga sputtered, and he sighed. Normally, he’d be pissed off at her righteous anger, but considering the circumstances, he almost appreciated it.

“No, it’s not what you’re thinking,” he said. “I don’t deal in drugs. I _take_ them.” He wouldn’t want to share his stash anyway — he was itching for a couple of tranqs to forget about Alice, about Saga, about being a police officer without the police, a father without children — but Saga didn’t need to know.

“Something from the pharmacy,” Henrik suggested. “Or from _Systemet_. Perfectly legal and government-approved.”

“Hot cocoa,” she said, very softly. “It’s what Jennifer and I used to drink when she — when she wasn’t well. Of course, it didn’t help, but I like the taste. There’s some in the cupboard.”

It was the most intimate detail she had ever volunteered, more intimate than him going down on her a few nights before, making her come twice, and he flinched. Her words conjured up images of sisterhood, of family, of Alice stirring chocolate powder into mugs plastered with smiling Disney princesses, droplets of milk spilling over chipped nail polish.

To distract himself, he rummaged through her tiny kitchen, stocked with a random assortment of instant noodles, crispbread, snus, and tinned tomatoes. The absurdly fancy package covered in festive red-and-green glitter was hiding behind a half-empty cereal box, an impersonal, overpriced gift from some Christmas party at the office. 

He sat next to Saga on the rumpled bedspread, sipping his cocoa and hoping the milk from the fridge hadn’t gone off yet. He’d have liked to wipe the smudged chocolate moustache off her upper lip if she had not disapproved of other people touching her face.

*****

They ended up falling into bed half-dressed, and he tried to give her some space, a complex exercise in shuffling and tugging on blankets, with her bed rather narrow and his own wide and always empty.

Though Saga turned her back to him, he felt the mattress sag under her weight, the warmth of her body. He envied her ability to fall asleep that fast, no matter the circumstances. He was still longing for a handful of pills to drag him under and drown him, but they were in his car, locked in the glove compartment, and he’d promised to stay.

So Henrik focused on her soft snores, the occasional flash of a headlight, the flickering pattern of shadows thrown by the blinds, the smell of Saga’s sweat on the pillows. Carefully, he reached over to stroke her bare forearm, dragging his fingers down to linger on her wrist, over her pulse.

Saga mumbled something indistinct and twitched under his touch. He froze. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I shouldn’t have — I know you don’t —” “’s okay,” she muttered and promptly fell asleep again, .his hand grazing hers.

When he blinked into the shining headlights of a car stopping outside, Alice was leaning against the window sill, her features sharply illuminated by a halo of harsh neon: he recognized the quirk of her left eyebrow, the curl of her lips, the expression she wore whenever she didn’t quite know whether to be amused or angry.

“Go to sleep, Henrik,” she told him, shaking her head. The last thing he heard before he was finally at rest was the echo of a door falling shut, far away.

In the cold light of morning, Alice was gone, but his arm was draped loosely around Saga’s waist, for a little longer until she woke.


End file.
